Funk Band “Slave” Guitarist & Vocalist Mark “Drac” Hicks Dead

Mark “Drac” Hicks, one of the founders and guitarist from “Slave” passed away on June 14, 2011 of a heart attack. Mark was part of Slave when they started to record and tour. He was 16 when they recorded “Slide.” Mark “Drac” Hicks and Steve Washington formed the group in Dayton, OH in 1975. Around 1980, Drac left, although he kept recording on a solo-album by other former Slave-member Stephen C. Washington and also for Washington’s project, Civil Attack. Around 1988 he released his first solo-album on Ichiban Records, to which Slave was signed as well. Mark recorded again with Slave, on their albums “Slave 88” (1988), “Rebirth” (1990), “The Funk Strikes Back” (1992) and “Masters Of The Fungk” (1995). Around 2005 he released “Keep Tha Funk Alive,” a single on his own Drac2005 label which includes 3 mixes of the new song, and 3 other mixes of a remake from “Weak At The Knees”, originally recorded by Steve Arrington’s Hall of Fame. In recent years, Mark has been performing Slave-compositions, from which 2 live-DVDs have been released. Mark “Drac” Hicks of SLAVE died with a SLAMjamz project on the table. They still want to move forward with the project. Slave member, Mark Adams, died in March 2011. My sincere condolences to Drac’s family and his friends. Like Mark Adams, he will be missed by all of the Slave fans. God bless. Thank you for the music! R.I.P. Some info from discogs.com